The Romance of Being a Wandering Fighter – Thailand

There is a certain romance to fighting in Thailand, wherein you train for some time at a Thai gym, traditional or otherwise, and you find yourself accepted by the gym and become part of its extended family. You travel with the gym, the Thai boys, and you fight for them and alongside them. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’ve experienced this. But this is about the romance of a different, less common kind of fighting in Thailand; something I’ve truly come to love. Of course there is much more to fighting than the romance of it, and I spend a lot of time writing about those things, but here I take on the feeling of the way of fighting I’ve found.

I’m lying on my back, looking up at an almost perfectly round moon, one night shy of being full. There’s a cable running across my line of vision, up high, from it hang alternating flags that are red, white and blue (Thai flag), and yellow with a red dharma wheel that is a Buddhist flag. We’re at a temple; behind me to the right are two monks, perched atop the steps of one of the shrines so they can watch over the makeshift wall that separates the ring from the rest of the festival, so that admission can be charged. This line of flags cuts over the top of the bleachers that reach up some 20 or 30 feet above me, straight up so that I can see the backs of all the men sitting on the top tier. Occasionally a few of them turn around, usually between rounds of the fight in the ring, and stare at me as as I lay on my mat in the darkness – they talk among themselves. These are the only audience members to be able to see me, from our little reclusive spot behind the bleachers, which is cut off on either side by parked trucks. Kevin and Jai Dee are laid out next to me on our mat, which is overlapping a few inches with the two mats of a few male fighters also on the card: one is wrapping his hands, one is napping. When we first arrived we’d put our mat down with a small gap between that mat and ours and the man in charge, who would be acting as my corner tonight, insisted that we connect the grass-woven mats. Closing that gap was really important, even though almost nobody else was around.

The Thai Way is traveling in groups. If there’s a truck headed to fights (or wherever), standard procedure is to cram that truck as full as possible with your entourage, which can include kids who will be working the corner, as well as family and neighbors. The groups can be big. The fact that I travel alone to fights, just me, Kevin and Jai Dee, is unusual. Add to that the fact that I’m a foreigner (as is Kevin, so we aren’t even traveling with a Thai chaperon) and it’s even more strange. Usually a western fighter is brought out to festival fights by their gym and kind of led around – this was my experience for years at Lanna. Even though festival fights were my favorite (and still are), I was guided through them more or less by my gym. The boys would tell me when it was time to wrap my hands, change into my shorts, get my massage and go to the ring. There isn’t usually any English spoken, so if you can’t read the fight program or hear when your name is being announced, you don’t even have any clue when you’re fighting. Showing up to a situation like this where you don’t know anybody, don’t have group “backup” or support, don’t necessarily have any idea when or who you’re fighting, you’d be a kind of the sucker at the table. Imagine a guy walking into the casino and everyone assumes he’s loaded because he’s a westerner, then he saddles up to the table looking confused and being by himself and nobody is even certain if he knows the rules of the game being played – a fool and his money will soon be parted, right? That’s a little bit what it could be like as a foreigner with no entourage in tow at a festival fight. And yet this has become somewhat common for me.

Because I now train either bare-fisted or with a thin gauze wrap, very minimal, I’ve grown comfortable wrapping my own hands for a fight. I know my hands now and they “need” very little. It used to be that I really longed for the superb, artful wraps of my expert corners – men with hundreds of fights, and having cornered a thousands times, tight layers of tape and cloth with unique techniques in how to pad; but now I grow quiet with my own simple gauze and a little tape. In the past when I would see my opponent wrapping her own hands I knew I was in for a fight. She’s done this many, many times before and wrapping one’s own hands demonstrates experience. I’ve become that girl. The old men who see me doing this give me enthusiastic thumbs up and a nod of approval.

I find the venue, find someone to corner for me (or meet whomever has been asked to help me by someone back home). I wrap my own hands, and try to explain to the men who will be in my corner how I fight, my style, so they know what they’re working with – don’t be telling me to kick and kick and kick. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’ll get an oil massage or not, which is really only because I’m a woman and it might be considered impolite for grown men to do this for me. Sometimes my corner will go find some kids out of the crowd, or just any other young woman who knows a thing or two about Muay Thai, to do my massage so the man in charge of my corner doesn’t have to. It’s a game of just making it all work – largely improvised and different each time. But here’s the thing: the chaos of this kind of improvisation used to throw me for a loop. When I was fighting in the stadia of Chiang Mai, all kinds of “unexpected” events or small changes might freak me out: my corner not wrapping my hands until it was a rush to get into the ring; the boys who were meant to “take care” of me being completely used to the process of going to fights, to the point of boredom, so I felt like they didn’t care about me or my fight… and they kind of didn’t, but I still thought at that time that everything was important; or having items forgotten – oil, a handwrap, tape, the mongkol… and inevitably there was always something missing. But now this kind of chaos is expected and it doesn’t feel important at all. Somehow, before, anything that was wrong was a distraction; now, because something always goes wrong I just focus on the most simple elements. One handwrap? Sure, split it in two. No tape? No problem, tuck it in or find some to borrow. Cornermen who I don’t know not paying any attention to me until I’m actually walking to the ring? Right as rain, honestly. Because everything has been paired down and simplified. It doesn’t read as chaotic anymore, it’s just noise, a buzz around the very basic patterns of fighting. Just pure fighting.

A Nora

In this way, I’ve become something of a Ronin fighter. Kevin and I just finished watching an Anime called “Noragami,” which translates to something like “stray god.” In the show the different gods have regalia, which are divine instruments for the use of the gods in battle. But they’re also sentient souls, named and dedicated to one god – the god who gives them their name.

But a Nora is a regalia (weapon) with more than one name; they’re seen as tricky because they may serve more than one master, but they’re also very powerful and able to do things that the normal, single-master regalia cannot do (due to the limitations of rules, really). I definitely identified with the Nora, because as a fighter who goes out on her own, without her gym and without a corner at times, I’m something of a rogue spirit. It’s romantic in some sense, in that I have this freedom to fight as much as possible, beyond the interests of a single gym and its resources, and because I speak Thai and can discuss fights with promoters directly, tell the men who are cornering for me what to expect from me, etc, (I mention knowing the language a few times in what follows, its an important dimension to this possibility). I also have this capacity to “serve” the investment of anyone who is hosting me. A promoter wants me on his card, he can book me and I’ll show up and fight pretty much anybody. S/he wants to put money on me, I’ll fight to my utmost and can make money for that promoter, my corner, and anyone else who is keen to bet on me. But it’s not all romance; as a Nora there is a “tsk” and head shake that comes from fighting with more than one name (when I fight up North, Lanna uses their name on cards; when I traveled with O. Meekhun they used their name; when I fight anywhere else or give my name to promoters myself, I am always Petchrungruang) because it’s not the strict devotion that is expected of contracted fighters. (I’m not contracted, though I am always respectful.) This moral component is perhaps best captured by the English word stray.

In Thai culture you are largely the sum of who you belong to, not just your family, but your clan, your baan (“home”). You do not willingly disconnect yourself without consequences. You are woven from local fabrics. But you are also what you appear to be, your image is a real manifestation of you. Images, displays and surfaces have power, they are the foundations of belief.

The stripped-down, super simplified way of fighting where I just show up and get in the ring feels amazing in many ways. I’m not waiting for my team to get me ready, which even though I truly love my home gym and feel very much a part of them, is often an emotionally painful experience because I am simply not (and never will be) treated the way the boys are – the boys of Petchrungruang are its future, its economy, they are hopefully to become big Bangkok fighters. It’s awkward for the gym to deal with me, because they are somewhat traditional and only have the youngest boys help with my massage, but I’m also too old for them to treat me like a little kid who they can guide around everywhere. So I’m kind of ignored, which only feels bad because I want the attention you’d expect if there was a lot of importance placed in the fight. But that’s not how it works here; my gym will put money on me and not even tell me – that money is faith, it’s belief in me, rather than the “you’re going to be great!” pep-talk that my western brain so badly wants and simply won’t ever get. So it’s nice to not expect it – to not even desire it – because my corner is, in these far-away fights, comprised of strangers. By being this rogue fighter, I’m in charge of myself and any help that’s offered to me is simply appreciated. I’m very self-directed because of this independence, and that feels good to me. I can bring good reputation to my gym by fighting hard, by winning in the outlying provinces, by impressing the promoters and gamblers so they remember me and want me to fight again. And I can bring money to the gamblers and promoters who put their financial faith in me. But I have to win.

I have affinity for the wandering, homeless, and thoroughly ethical fighter. The romance of it is captured perhaps best the incredible Zatoichi series (above) which follows the adventures of a blind swordsman as he journeys across Japanese countryside, from village to village, encountering a world ruled by local powers. I watched these films at length long before I thought to come to Thailand, and it makes a remarkable coincidence (or perhaps none at all) that I find myself in the Nora position at times, traveling out to fights, fighting at very high numbers, now often with very little support present. There is something incredibly sympathetic about the Ichi character.

I am coming back to my mat, turning to accept congratulations, and alternately have my makeshift corner start messing with my wraps, picking at the adhesive that stubbornly clings to the gauze underneath. A grandmother is grabbing my bicep and working her way down my arm in a combination of disbelief and wonder. Perhaps she bet on me. It is not uncommon for people to want to touch you after you have won, to – it would seem – rub off some of the merit, the glow of what makes victory, the luck of who you are in that moment. If you win a raffle, people might gather around to touch you and glean some of that luck. And you can share it – there’s no risk of it being “rubbed away.”

The Beauty of Gambling

In many circumstances in Thailand promoters will book westerners on their cards for novelty and interest. In cities like Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Bangkok (or perhaps the Islands), a non-Thai on the card is expected to sell tickets. For some it’s simply that tourists want to see a Thai vs. Westerner fight, maybe their own countrymen; and for some the promoter knows that booking a westerner from a gym means all the other westerners at that gym will buy tickets to come support. But out in the countryside, the novelty is for Thai gamblers. Kevin and I are often the only westerners at all when we walk through the huge crowds of festival fights (see the video below). So, booking a westerner as novelty is one level of fighting out in the countryside or stadia far away from my home gym. But putting money on me is a different thing entirely. It’s the promoter putting skin in the game, so to speak, and ensuring a tough fight. Gambling is complex in Thailand, but it’s of incredible importance and it’s the heartbeat that pumps blood through Muay Thai across the country, especially in the provinces. There are the odds, which is how the crowd bets on fights, but there’s also the “side bet,” which is basically each side in any given match saying, “our fighter will beat your fighter.” If you want to put 10,000 Baht on your fighter (about $280 USD), then the opponent’s side has to agree to that sum and match it. It has to come from legitimate belief that your fighter can win, otherwise you’re just handing someone money. Coming out to these fights without my gym, without a corner, without some kind of representative, the side bet is tricky. Part of the pressure on me to win is that, whatever happens in these fights out there, that’s what the promoter and the gamblers will remember; it either opens a door or closes it. And by not having my own gym present, which knows that I have good days and bad days, knows my strengths and has built belief in me over the course of almost two years now, when I come out here alone that belief has to be sprung from “reputation” for the promoter to put down money on me for a side bet. He or she has to believe, “I think my fighter can beat yours.”

The importance of the side bet. So about 30 minutes before my fight my opponent comes to my mat with her coach to size me up. This means we literally stand up next to each other. She was a good size, taller – Thai girls are really good at slumping down and looking smaller in these moments, it’s a skill and a hustle. She had a few kilos on me. 10 minutes later the promoter comes to the mat and starts talking about the matchup and that my opponent is demanding a 5,000 baht side bet. They won’t fight without it. Kevin and I look at each other, we don’t have 5,000 baht (about $150), and even if we did we couldn’t bet it in an uncertain festival fight where you don’t know how the refs will line up along local ties. We’re afraid the fight is going to be called off. No, no the promoter tells us, he’ll put up the sidebet. He just wants to tell me to fight “dem” (full, ie really hard). Yeah, no problem. That’s how I do. I guess she thought she had some easy money. I love this shifting aspect of festival fights.

There is something so beautiful about this. The attempted hustle on her part, the weighing of my reputation. People talk a lot about “fairness” of fights in the West. Fair, transparent judging, making sure everyone is within a kilo after huge weight cuts, so many mechanisms of “fairness”. But when you fight a lot, especially in these circumstances, you realize that there are advantages and disadvantages everywhere, every time, and in many variations. Weight is one of many aspects involved in trying to make a fair fight, by which we should mean a competitive match up. In these Ronin fights for me there can be judge or referee bias, so you are fighting uphill, no big deal – you have to control the fight more demonstratively. You may unjustly lose, no big deal (if you fought the fight you wanted to), it happens. This world of fighting is closer to Fight Club than it is to some internationally sanctioned tournament that produces a trophy or a belt. The weigh-in is to convince gamblers that there’s an attempt at making a match even; this may be required for both sides to make the side bet, but if both sides are convinced enough in their fighter’s abilities, then the weight can be disequal. This is fighting. You go, you see, you fight.

Personally, I would take a fight like this over 99 out of a 100 championship fights in a big arena, with belts or other pieces of public glory on the line. This kind of fight feels alive to me; it feels connected, even though I’m going out as a satellite. It has no hype. It is just fighting. And honestly, there is not much difference in the difficulty of the fight. I’ve fought World Champions in a hidden festival or a out of the way stadium, and on big shows. It’s the same fight. Yes, one gives you public acclaim in the West and attaches a belt or top event victory to your name on websites, and the other spreads your name through a grapevine of Thai murmurs. I prefer the latter, really. Nothing against those that hold belts, and fight big shows. I’m sure those achievements are very satisfying and worthy honors that last a lifetime… but this post is about the Romance of another path, the path of the Wandering Fighter. “Good for you… not for me.” In truth, in Thailand fights for titles and belts is about who you know, they are arranged by the connections your gym has, contacts with organizational promoters – usually in disregard to rankings – I’m not really connected in that way; but in my world contacts are often direct, with the promoter speaking directly to me to book me on their card. I love that; and that’s why these promoters will put their own money down for me, even though I’m a Nora. That’s why I can approach the ticket gate of a venue I’ve never been to before in the middle of nowhere, and tell them I’m a fighter in order to get through, and someone will inevitably already know my name or have seen me fight somewhere else before. That’s my “title.”

It is not uncommon for female Thai fighters to fight under multiple names (I assume males do, too; but I don’t follow them as closely). Sometimes they have a home gym name, but also a Bangkok name. Because they may be contracted they may make up a name for a region of fights, or even a particular fight, to hide their identity for match-up purposes or to avoid paying part of their purse to their contracted gym, or even just to be able to fight “off the books”. Names do shift in the female fight scene. A name reflects status and the context you are in.

Appearances

What cannot be left out is my appearance as I travel into the provinces. I’m never completely sure how I am seen, but I can tell you that I am starkly out of context. I walk into an Amazon Coffee when on the road and the teenage girls behind the counter talk loudly among themselves, not realizing I am understanding them. My sak yant are not just decorative, and among believers it must look like I am walking around fully armed, as in, weaponized. I have sak yant on my hands, which is an extreme placement, no doubt looked down upon by any with social standing – or with concern. And when I take my sweatshirt off, and stand there in my fight top, getting my massage, I am covered with very powerful images: a Sangwan Rahu (a dark deity) on my chest and two large Tigers and Takroh (authority and protection) on my back. The Sangwan is something almost exclusively tattood on males, and it is a little Old School. Beyond this I am incredibly muscled for a female. I really don’t lift weights much, the sum of it comes from just pounding the pads and bag, and lots of clinch, but naturally I gain muscle easily and I look like no other female seen in these areas. Possibly socially nefarious (tattoos read like how they might in the 1960s in the west), and magically incanted. For a long time I had a very hard time accepting the stares I would generate. They are rarely complimentary. But you do not commit to this way of life – not only my training, but also my spiritual path via sak yant – without owning what you have become and are becoming. I just must look unbelievable… and as a Thai-speaker I’m probably even stranger. I can’t count how many times I’ve uttered even the most minimal Thai and the response be utter shock. If there is a Romance in this, it is that I carry with me not only the appearance of how hard I train, in my physique, but I also carry with me the marks of the kinds of superstitious beliefs that mean something in the provinces; and they mean something to me. I am ultimately alien, but not only because I am farang. I am alien in almost everything that I appear to be, a complete anomaly. And when I fight strong, in my clinch style, all that armored imagery and physique looks like it comes to fruition.

How Unique this Is

I’m not sure if anyone has fought like this in Thailand, and if they have they are very few, and they’ve left no record other than a few stories told to friends – it’s one reason why I write. There is a constellation of qualities, relationships and capacities that all allow this way of fighting to exist – for me. Firstly, I have the blessing from my trainer and the owner of my gym (Pi Nu) to find fights for myself outside of Pattaya. Without that, I would be disrespecting him with this kind of promiscuous fighting. This is extremely important. I asked him if I could use his name when I fought around Thailand and at first he was hesitant, he didn’t know me yet; but now that I’ve established myself, he’s proud of me and proud of my reputation being connected to his gym. That took time; that was earned. And he still is proud of me when I lose. But in order to make these fights possible I also have to be able to talk directly with promoters, to follow the women in weekly magazines who are around my weight class to ask for as opponents. So speaking Thai, and just as importantly being able to read and write it opens this world to me. Often these venues are hard to find, as they’re temporary rings set up in fields or on temple grounds. Being able to find them with a rented car requires GPS (the godsend, without which this would not be possible), LINE texting in Thai, understanding what people are saying to me when I hunt for directions, etc, is essential. Even 5 years ago I’m not sure this would have been possible, technologically. And small things like being able to hear my name on the loudspeakers, so I know when to get ready on cards that are shifting their order of fights over and over; being able to read the program, and ask questions, all of this is important when not having a Thai buffer when we arrive at these rings. These things remove a thick layer between myself and the fight, make it feel purer for me. A simplified version of fighting.

And of huge importance is having learned the ropes of traveling for fights after my GoFundMe 1.5 years ago that allowed the possibility of renting a car and driving to other provinces in order to keep fighting. First and foremost was just being able to afford traveling to fight, to rent a car, to stay the night in a local hotel. This was how I got my name out there and made connections with promoters outside of Pattaya. And that was made possible by people who follow my page believing in me and supporting what I do; without that support none of this would have been possible – now this site and my fighting is supported monthly on Patreon. Everyone who contributed to that created a long lesson for me in “How to Travel to a Fight”, social and pragmatic lessons taught in small steps. Everything from how to get to where I’m going to how to build relationships around promotions. Now when I go to fights I will often leave with a phone number that can lead to future fights, sometimes not even with the same promoter but someone else in the stands excited by my fight and who wants me to come to their province, their promotion, which is how I met Madam Khem, who is my Isaan manager now and one of very few big female promoters. She’s amazing.

I do not believe you can achieve this, especially as a female fighter, out of a single gym, home or Thai family. The deeper you settle in the culture of a traditional gym, as a woman, you take the role of a woman. The expectations change for you.

Mai Mee Baan – The Homeless Ronin

The expectations change for you. You have to constantly struggle against the stagnation of belonging, while proving that you belong out of the respect and devotion you give. Female fighting is not lucrative, and women are more or less expected to stop fighting almost as soon as they can. Even as a man in a gym, where you fight, with whom you fight, and an what shows you fight all depends on the connections of your gym – for a western female this can be even more so the case. I do still get fights through my gym, including out in the countryside because some of the men who are peripheral to my training (avid gamblers Small Man and Chicken Man who live at the chicken farm attached to the back of the gym) will book me for fights in Isaan, even if they don’t come with me. So those connections are very important, they are part of the extended reach of my gym. But because I have my own relationships also, those that have arisen from fighting itself, the possibilities are much wider – it’s who I know as well.

Just after my most recent fight up in Pak Thong Chai, where the promoter had put up the side bet for me when my opponent demanded it (thus earning him 5,000 Baht – $140 USD), he said to me after the fight, “I have your number now so I can call you to book more fights.” I told him that was great, that I’d love to come back anytime and next month is pretty open. That seems great, this is exactly how I make connections in order to book fights at a high rate. But here’s the second element: it’s probably slightly uncool for him to cut out Chicken Man straight off like that. That’s who made this fight for me in the first place, even though he totally passed me off by not coming with me as my corner. It’s nothing nefarious at all, but in terms of how things are done, I suspect there’s something slightly off about cutting him out to book with me directly. It’s part of being a Nora fighter and it is, in essence, further severing me from my gym rather than tying me back into it. I suspect that this is possible in part because I’m not Thai – there’s a looseness in the rules which allows behaving in a way that is outside of one’s own custom or social parameters. When I arrived back at Petchrungruang the next afternoon, driving back from Khorat the morning after the fight, having a nap and then heading straight back to training, nobody at the gym was surprised to see me. But everyone knew where I’d gone and most of them knew the name of who I was fighting; they wanted to know how the fight went, what round I’d won in, was there a side bet, etc. I was filling them in on all these things that should have been shared experience in a normal situation. And while their not being there is slightly unsupportive of me (they could have driven out to corner) – and me going alone is slightly like the semi-stray cat strolling in – there was still this feeling of pride; like I’d gone out and represented them well and brought the name esteem. But because of the negative qualities of being a Nora, which I’m only really able to do because I’m so strange (a western woman who wants to fight all the goddamn time), I have to make doubly sure that I show the qualities of respect and affiliation to the gym. I deeply value my home gym, as well as other gyms that have helped me develop. I am loyal to them, and in the end their respect is a decisive aim for me. It doesn’t really matter what is said or thought, as long as my gym and my trainers appreciate me.

Why Fight Like This?

The first and most obvious answer is this: I believe that this is the way one becomes the best fighter she can be… fighting a great deal. I mean this not only in terms of performance in the ring, but also in a deeper way. We all discover things about ourselves as we push through marital arts, and in the fights we have, and there just are things about you that you will not discover in 20 fights, or 50 fights. For me, after 70 fights, after 100 fights, after 130 fights. Extended losing streaks strip away surface things, extended winning streaks nourish and solidify. I’ve uncovered things within me that I just could not see without going through it – unless you’ve been there you cannot know. You may think you have it down at whatever point you are at – what fighting means, what fighting is about – but there is more. I fight like this to get to the next layer.

Another, perhaps less obvious answer is that this is just a privilege to be able to fight in Thailand, the home and cradle of Muay Thai. Each and every fight is precious. And every time you fight it changes you. There is nothing like it. We all have a very limited time to experience these things – even someone like John Wayne Parr, who has retired a few times, realizes that there is nothing like a fight, and every fight is golden. When you stop – and we all do stop, eventually – it is finished. So I am determined to experience fighting as much as I personally can. This is time you cannot waste. You will never be at this place in your life again. Like a person who lived through the Depression and as a result continues to hoard every piece of aluminum foil long into life, I remember how incredibly hard it is to find a fight – especially at my weight – in the US. I remember fighters like Amy Davis who had to go years without opponents, and I refuse to not honor that reality. I will fight because fighting is extremely valuable, and it is limited. I want to see what is beyond the next bend, and I want to report it to others. If you draw the map others can explore it and expand on it.

The map of the locations of all my 130+ fights – click to view

I Do Have a Home, I Return To It

With all this said, I am not a mai mee baan fighter; I’m not homeless. I have a home in Petchrungruang and I am strongly devoted to it. Additionally, gratefully, I also feel very much a part of it. What I do is uncommon and if I were a Thai boy would simply not be allowed. But for all the dismissal I face for not being a Thai boy, I also have liberty because of that.

Nobody wants to see the Zatoichi episode where he settles down and stops roaming. As much as it feels sad to see him walk away from what appears to be settling, that is his way; he’s got to ramble on. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t experience real connections – he would draw his sword to protect the people he has met along his journey who he truly loves… but he won’t lay down his sword because it would end the world of Zatoichi. But even I have more of a home than a Zatoichi. Being a stray is not unburdened and it’s certainly not uncomplicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s disconnected or disloyal; you can be respectful and self-directed at the same time. It’s hard for me to communicate that both of these tendencies exist within me at the same time. I can be respectful and loyal, while I’m still reaching for the freedom to become what I can be. I know Pi Nu feels my loyalty and my gratitude, and for me that’s all I require. Pi Nu, has shaped me and helped me evolve in a way that makes me feel indebted to him. But in the way you may feel indebted to your parents, to a mentor – the kind of debt that cannot ever be repaid other than in the continued desire to try to repay it. It took Pi Nu a while to see what I am, and a little longer to accept it, and now to actually embrace and advocate for it.

Below are two videos to give a feel of what I’m talking about. The first is footage of me walking out to my corner through an enormous crowd of gamblers at my last fight in a festival in Pak Thong Chai in Nakhon Ratchasima province in Isaan. The second is a few kilometers from the festival, driving home the following morning. The wind on the microphone makes it all seem more eerie than it was, but in a way it really is other-worldly, attached by the string of a GPS signal, so we can know where we are going, surrounded by farmland and gravel roads.

Walking Through a Crowd

Driving Home From Isaan

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A 103 lb. (46 kg) female Muay Thai fighter. Originally I trained under Kumron Vaitayanon (Master K) and Kaensak sor. Ploenjit in New Jersey. I then moved to Thailand to train and fight full time in April of 2012, devoting myself to fighting 100 Thai fights, as well as blogging full time. Having surpassed 100 fights in 3 years here, my new goal is to fight an impossible 200 times in Thailand, as much as I possibly can, and to continue to write my experience.

1 Comment

Robyn

March 1, 2016 2:27 am

I love this post and feel so lucky and blessed that I got to venture off the beaten path with you and watch you fight in Isaan. They are memories I will cherish forever.

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[Update May 2015: Here is my account of the Backward Facing Tigers I received next] above video: my thoughts on just coming out from the 2 hrs of tattooing my sak yant. As one can see, I was significantly affected by the experience, but was in good spirits. It is a lot to digest. What This Sak Yant Meant to Me People may not realize it from the fact that I post online and blog, and even sometimes write about very personal things, but I’m an extremely private person. And even though I have probably put more out there about

Surfing the Chaos I’ve known Emma for a few years now. We actually met through online communication and I forget that we didn’t actually meet each other in person until a little over a year ago. I really like Emma and recently I was scrolling through a feed of our private messages on Facebook in order to show something she’d sent me to my Thai friend and my friend remarked, “wow, you write so much! It’s like a book!” Yeah, we talk a lot. Which made me realize with surprise that I’ve not yet interviewed Emma. I’ve certainly thought to

Sataanmuanglek Numponthep – Magician A few days a go a clinch video swept across Facebook, featuring the young fighter Sataanmuanglek Numponthep just looking incredible in “man in the middle” training. This kind of training is very common in Thailand, and often can go for 40 minutes or more (rotating out the man who is in the middle) – it’s one of the reasons I moved to Pattaya to train at Petchrungruang, this kind of work. But Sataanmuanglek just looks spectacular in this clip. The very best clinch throw techniques are those where you almost can’t see where the trip came

This is a new feature I’m going to try my hand at. I’ve got a lot on my plate out here, but it feels like it would be a shame to waste some of the small technical Muay Thai know-hows I’ve run into, so I’m going to try to stop and film them in short segments when I come across a new one. Sometimes it will be something I’ve discovered in my own struggle to synthesize all the amazing technique that is surrounding me, but mostly I hope it is short pieces of instructions or help from those teaching

this space is Sylvie’s space, where she writes her record. But with the first year of fighting completed I felt I wanted to add my thoughts, as a husband. In part because Sylvie is fighting for all of us, a family. guest post, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu I’m a pretty quiet guy around the gym and at fights, so much so people tend to not get past the exterior. But when they do one of the things they ask me is “Do you ever get worried when Sylvie goes in there?” This is such a natural thing to ask a

above – our short film on a typical day of my training here in Pattaya (25 min) – วิดีโอซ้อมมวยกิจวัตรประจำวันค่ะ อยู่ที่พัทยาค่ะ We’ve been wanting to do this for a while, making a full day of training in video format. But things get pretty busy and shooting it all and editing just always got pushed back. At first we wanted to shoot it because I was training in an unusual way, back in February of this year, training both at Petchrungruang (2x) and once at WKO with Sakmongkol – training at two gyms in Thailand is rare and socially complicated, something I

I’ve written about the bottom rope before (articles at bottom) and this is my response to it coming up again recently. Interestingly, it was reintroduced by an American coach who was saying that his female fighters have always and will always go over the top rope, even in Thailand. Unfortunately, he had some other things to say about why he encourages his fighters to disregard this custom that, to me, smack of a particular racism and sexism that fantasizes about the exploited Thai female body that wasn’t something I could get behind. Firstly, a lot of people in the west

(above) my video introduction the common fight fears of gassing out and shin pain, the video below shows Den talking about what to do for fight conditioning Some Tough Talk One of the advantages of training non-stop in Thailand for so long is a sense of perspective I’ve gained on people who come with Muay Thai dreams. I’ve met maybe 100 people over the past year and a half who have come through the gym with serious aspirations to fight. They arrive very enthused, but less than a quarter of them actually do fight and none of them – not

This piece flowed out of my experiences that led to writing The Fragility of Western Masculinity, and responses to this post lead to me writing Endurance is a Skill. Read All My Articles on Overtraining Preface – I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long while and two things happened recently that have allowed me to finally pull it together. The first thing was writing to Lewis Pugh, who is an incredible athlete and ocean advocate who swims in extreme conditions in order to draw attention to the effects of climate change on the earth’s oceans. (Picture swimming

In the world of athletics and motivational memes, the word “sacrifice” gets thrown around a lot. All the things that one must sacrifice in the name of greatness, the hardships of waking up to train, missing out on nights of drinking with friends… whatever. I know people use this word without truly dissecting the concept, it’s just part of sport-speak. But I don’t use this word because it means a lot to me. When I think of the word “sacrifice” I think of giving up something of immense value – sacrifice is painful, not unfortunate or just hard. Abraham willing

What follows is not authoritative, it is just the things I’ve gleaned in my nearly 5 years of full time training at my various gyms, and in traveling around and taking privates from some of the best in Thailand. You can get access to my growing Muay Thai library with legends for a suggested pledge of $5. I read a rant on Reddit that, despite its intense language, does open up that some people do get frustrated training in Thailand, finding a lack of instruction and padwork that be repetitive. I do believe there is no better place in the

A few months ago I wrote post titled Game Day: Why You Should Fight Muay Thai in Thailand. This is a follow up or “part two” to that post on the subject of how you know when you’re ready to fight, in Thailand or otherwise. When Are You Ready? Not long ago a fellow who I met through my Facebook page and who made it out to Thailand to train at a gym that is also in Chiang Mai came by Lanna to train with us. After a full session including sparring he started talking about how he expected to

Sylvie’s Tips – Muay Thai Techniques

This is a new feature I’m going to try my hand at. I’ve got a lot on my plate out here, but it feels like it would be a shame to waste some of the small technical Muay Thai know-hows I’ve run into, so I’m going to try to stop and film them in short segments when I come across a new one. Sometimes it will be something I’ve discovered in my own struggle to synthesize all the amazing technique that is surrounding me, but mostly I hope it is short pieces of instructions or help from those teaching

The real instruction doesn’t come until minute 1:40 but the thought to record Bai jumping in to practice knees with the boys was simply because it was pretty cute. Then her dad came over to correct her form (she was imitating the boys, mostly one who is a few down in the row). Bai is 9 years old and has a few fights; this drill is something all the kids do at the start of training as a warmup and conditioning drill. I’m pretty sure they do a thousand repetitions. As Bai first starts out, her father Goh (who is

Just a little bagwork drill/game that I ran into in the gym by one of my favorite young fighters, Jatukam. Jatukam is 14 or 15 years old and just crushes his competition at Lumpinee and Rajadamnern. He’s one of the best fighters at 40 kg (88 lbs) and has a really clever, muay femur style, which is the tricky and evasive style mostly associated in the west with Saenchai. He’s Southpaw and has a nasty teep, but that doesn’t stop him from getting in close and smashing my face with solid left crosses when we spar. He’ll smile the

This is a quick Sylvie’s Tips on something I’ve rediscovered for my training. The main tip actually comes from when I trained with the great Kaensak Sor. Ploenjit at AMA in New Jersey several years ago. He would have me get close to and kick the wall, instead of a bag or a pad, in order to force my whole shin to line up in a parallel fashion (perpendicular to the extended kick angle some use striking the side of a target, and not the 45 degree landing angle that is common, instead flat against the target, knee bent). It

n Sylvie’s Tips I try to capture on video various small techniques that I run into while training. The way that it happens in Thailand, things are seldom taught to you in the form of formal instruction, rather they come up suddenly in training and then are gone. I’m pretty shy, so it’s hard actually go around and request these things; I don’t want to stop everyone and have them repeat things for the camera. In this case though we arrived at O. Meekhun gym to find organized instruction being given to Phetjee Jaa and one of the boys named

We got a question on the Muay Thai Roundtable forum the other day that I reckon is a pretty common issue. When I first started taking Muay Thai from Master K, he described the teep as the “electric fence” around every other technique. Teep comes first, basically – the first line of defense and keeping your opponent out of your space until you want them there. And I sucked at teeping for a really long time. It’s only fairly recently, in the last 1.5 years maybe, that my teep has become a favorite technique, and it didn’t become that way because

After 45 minutes or so of sparring with Den yesterday he finally broke down for me what I was doing wrong with my attempts to land kicks on him. (I landed maybe 5 in that time, although I was able to affect him with my punches when I charged in with flurries; I’m much more comfortable with punches because of my balance, I think.) Den has told me before to shorten my kick because the loping round kick is too slow and easy to see coming, so he just moves out of the way of the kick and then counters

In my Dieselnoi Instruction post I made a video demonstrating some of the different sorts of knees used in Muay Thai. I’m not an expert in any of these, but I felt it might be good to just present an overview as a single, “proper” knee does not so much exist in Muay Thai, and there are many different techniques used for different purposes. Sometimes the focus is damage done, or accumulating points, or even just making sure the knee is clearly visible to the judges. As I say in the introduction to the video, these are all variations on knees and,

Making Your Elbows (Hooks & Crosses) Fast, Direct and Accurate This is a pretty simple technique and you can find a wall anywhere, so we can mark this down as one of the most accessible tools there is. Basically, I have been alerted to the folly of how my arms launch away from my body when I throw strikes, which is detrimental to both power and control. Sagat is the one who really explained trajectory to me [<<watch that session to see what this philosophy of strking is about], showing how a wind-up is just wasted space, energy and time,

Above is a little video of how I wrap my hands. I think it’s good to experiment with different kinds of wrap techniques as they have different strengths. It took me a while to settle on this one. Hand size, punching style, the wrap material itself can make a difference – I’ve been liking the longer, softer wraps of Top King and Punish (an Australian company). This wrap technique incorporates an extra padded layer made of a fold of the wrap placed on the knuckles first (for torn up skin, I’ve actually added a cut kitchen sponge for a few

above, my short Sylvie’s Tips on how I’m practicing Long Guard on the bag lately Everything little thing we do on the bag is repetition, even unconscious things can be “trained” into you. Simply taking a time out and walking back from the bag to reset during your rounds is that kind of small element. The further I get in my Muay Thai journey, the more I’m examining my bagwork (and shadow) for unconscious elements that I’m accidentally, or even non-efficiently training. It’s about awareness, so that I can figure out how to get my training into the ring with me

Sylvie’s Tips: The Floating Block Sakmongkol was the first person to tell me not to turn around on kicks. He was adamant about it. It’s very awkward when you first try and your kick can be really flicky and horrible, but the more you get it under control the more you realize how much this increases power. Basically you want to have confidence that you can control your kick at any time, so if you miss your target you’re not going to spin all the way around. Honestly, you’ll seldom if ever see this in a Thai fight and when

This is a deceptively simple way to close distance. I get interesting communication from readers and fans. When it’s brief, I’ll answer directly. Mostly I try to get folks to post their questions on the Muay Thai Roundtable forum so it can help others who might have the same questions and more people can chime in to help with answers; but in this case the question was one I’ve not only worked hard to develop a strategy on, as a smaller fighter, but it’s also one that I’ve heard a few times. So it makes sense to do a Sylvie’s

Some of My Best Posts

I’ve written before about how Muay Thai and fighting, to me, isn’t “violence.” My argument was that I have experienced real violence, the above is the story of my rape as a child, and that the consent and preparation involved in fighting isn’t the same. There is, however, a flavor of violence in Muay Thai – it is, as my old boxing coach Ray Valez would say, “the hurt business” and ultimately any fighter pushing for the highest form of the art of Muay Thai has to embrace this. Yesterday there was a young woman at my gym, Petchrungruang, who

I just had to do my annual visa run, which requires sitting in a van full of total strangers for the 11 hour drive up to the border with Laos, an overnight stay, then the 11 hour drive back down to Pattaya. It’s grueling. Sitting in a car or a plane for this number of hours takes a toll on anyone. It’s astonishing how tired sitting on your ass makes you. I’m not very social, so I always put as many hours of podcasts and audio books as possible on my player so I can leave my headphones in the

Apologies to my younger readers, this post is laced with profanity. Sometimes profanity has a special power to describe things in ways other words can’t. The plastic stool underneath me is too far out from the actual corner and my body kind of tips backwards as my cornermen lift my legs into their hands and rub icy cold water on my thighs and shins. I try to balance myself on the ropes but it’s more awkward and I reposition my forearms to the tops of my thighs; the cold water is going over my head now, which feels nice because

This article is about the flourishing Muay Thai of Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, becoming the best female fight city in the country and very possibly in the entire world. No other city boasts such a complete native female Thai fight scene: it’s fed by side-bet (gambling) fights in the outlying provinces, stabilized by Sports Schools, hosted at a large number of local stadia (all of which allow women to fight in them) which hold fights every night of the week, and supported by the Thai Muay Siam media coverage. If you are a female Muay Thai fighter, this

Stephan Fox is the General Secretary of the International Federation of Muaythai Amateur (IFMA) and the Vice-President of the World Muaythai Council (WMC). He is a huge figure in the recognition and development of amateur Muaythai in Thailand, as well as international competition with both the IFMA and WMC. After 20 years of work, the International Olympic Committee has just given provisional recognition for possible inclusion in the Olympics – let me repeat that: 20 years of work for that, and Mr. Fox’s response is, “right on schedule.” above, the full 30 minute interview with Stephan Fox We cover a range of

What follows is not authoritative, it is just the things I’ve gleaned in my nearly 5 years of full time training at my various gyms, and in traveling around and taking privates from some of the best in Thailand. You can get access to my growing Muay Thai library with legends for a suggested pledge of $5. I read a rant on Reddit that, despite its intense language, does open up that some people do get frustrated training in Thailand, finding a lack of instruction and padwork that be repetitive. I do believe there is no better place in the

Alex and Note are standing on opposite corners of the ring, wearing shinguards and gloves, hanging out like they’re about to do anything other than sparring. They’re totally relaxed, laughing, joking. Kru Nu is pacing around and there’s a buzz around the circumference of the ring while the remainder of the boys all takes their positions along the ropes as spectators and Goh – one of the padmen for the kids – is hollering for Chicken Man. Kru Nu squats down with his hands on the top rope, peering under the staircase and out into the chicken farm, the most likely

First off, let me say it: weight, its not that big of a deal. There is a strong caveat to this, which is that it is a definite advantage, but so is height, or knowing the scoring system, or fighting since you were 10, or having a fight on your home turf, and so many other things. So while weight is always a potential advantage, it is just one among many possible advantages. You can beat people who have the weight advantage over you, just like you can with any of those other advantages. I know that in the West

read my guest post articles a Husband’s Point of View A Husband’s Point of View – Consider this a working theory. I’ve written about the uniqueness of Thai style training before, in The Slow Cook vs the Hack, and this article can be seen as something of an extension of that. But as Sylvie’s husband watching her progress through very earnest training and a hell of a lot of fighting, and seeing numerous westerners come through her Thai gyms, I’ve come upon something I think is pretty important. What led me to this is a very particular quality many serious

Below is meant to be a helpful guide, something that I wish I had when I first came to training Thailand. These are just things I’ve noticed in my 4 years of training and fighting here and are not hard and fast rules to follow. If you want to be polite in Thailand gyms, in a culture that is different than your own, these are just a few things to look for. There are of course a wide variety of gym experiences in Thailand, and things that are impolite in a small, family Thai-style gym might very well be common

A lot of us feel that aggression comes with an “on/off” switch, and that we should be able to flick it back and forth based on context. Many of us who are learning Muay Thai struggle with aggression, perhaps because we don’t feel that we are “naturally aggressive,” and it’s frustrating to watch those who are seemingly naturally gifted with aggression succeed in ways that we don’t see in ourselves. But aggression isn’t natural, even if it does seem innate in some more than others. I contend that aggression feels natural to some due to having spent years cultivating it before they

First a Little Bit About Daeng Daeng is one of the most fight-focused trainers I’ve trained with. When I was training at Lanna Muay Thai in Chiang Mai, it was Daeng who invested the most in diagnosing and fixing weaknesses in my fighting. He wasn’t my main trainer, but he’s a very good teacher and has a keen eye for finding how to improve on existing strengths and correct errors. I’d initially gotten a bit stuck with a technically brilliant but lazy and unmotivated trainer – that guy was a great trainer for some, just not for me – and Daeng

Join and Study my Muay Thai Library of Legends This is a full video of a private I took with Arjan Surat, Head Coach of the Thai National Team, and owner of the esteemed (but lesser known to the west) Dejrat Gym in Bangkok. I did a short review of the gym when I interviewed female fighter Kaitlin Young, and it was then that I met Arjan Surat for the first time: an absolutely extraordinary teacher and life-force of Muay Thai. The man is Old School-Old School, telling me that he’s been holding pads longer than I’ve been alive (he’s

The Gendered Experience

Below are some ruminations on things I’ve picked up on in Thai culture These are suspicions I’ve arrived at through my various experiences and observations of Thai culture and should be taken as that, rather than claims of unarguable fact. I’m not fluent in Thai, neither the language nor the culture, but these are opinions I’ve formed through my experiences, observations and some academic research thus far. If anyone has further insight into or perspective on the language, gender and subculture I’d be glad to hear it. Thai Fighter Names and Gender Bias You can almost immediately spot female fighters

When Taking Pity Takes Too Much We have a new woman at the gym. She’s only trained a handful of weeks, ever, and will have her first fight at the end of the month. So Pi Nu is really putting her through the trials to get her ready and I suspect that part of his Draconian directives that she clinch everyday comes from him watching me have success with clinch over the past 1.5 years that I’ve been under his instruction at the gym. He watched me go from unable to unstoppable, so I think he’s become a real believer

You can watch my video interview with Angie here. I’m watching Angie smash the pads with Pi Nu. She becomes very still when he tags her legs with kicks – they don’t look hard from here, and they’re definitely not full power, but I’ve been on the receiving end of them and they fucking hurt – but she stays strong. She pauses after the strike, the expression on her face becomes hardened and she comes back with a full-power strike and a grunt, almost a growl, in return. She’s preparing for a fight and she’s serious. Her last fight was

Guest Post by Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu There is a very touching piece written by Lindsey Newhall for Fightland: Life of a Pad-Man: A Muay Thai Trainer’s Remorse. The pinnacle of the story is where Dam, a long time pad-man for champions and by most reports a devoted drunk, talks about how he threw the biggest fight of his life and career, because he was told to and you do what you are told…and, because the gym children “needed to eat”: He looked sad, almost defeated. “Okay,” I said to him, “I want you to tell me a story: I want

There is a natural division in western feminist thinking, and in some way this post is about that divide. But much more it is about the situational ethics, the principles we may want to protect and forward, when visiting or even living in a traditional culture like Thailand; when coming to a different culture as a western privileged woman. This post is a single-person deliberation about how to best do so in the context of Muay Thai and its unique traditions in Thailand, how I am attempting to do so. Hopefully this resonates with others. Not all women from the

Growing up in Colorado had innumerate perks that I only came to appreciate long after I took them for granted. City kids in New York and Philadelphia learn how to handle themselves on public transportation from an early age and kids like me in the wilds of mountains and deserts learned how to “pack out what you pack in” with equal diligence. The first rule of backpacking in the mountains of Colorado and deserts of Utah is to leave no trace of yourself, the foremost lesson being to preserve the world you’re exploring. When I was maybe 12 years old

Afternoon training at Petchrungruang yesterday was a pendulum swinging between, “hey, that’s not so bad,” to “holy hell, I’m never going to make it through this.” I didn’t feel well, mostly fatigued and feeling a little bit flu-ish in the sore muscle and fever department. So of course, of course, as I’m pushing my way through bagwork I get called in to the ring to do sparring with this kid who has been kicking my ass in clinch the last couple days. So I sucked it up and got in the ring, focusing on just having the right kind of

– This is part of what is likely a series of articles on western female sexuality in Thai gyms – it’s a big topic and I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and this seemed like the best place to start. This view comes from my personal experience, and reflection, but also from conversations I’ve been having with women who have trained or are currently training elsewhere in Thailand. How Are You Drawn? There’s a stereotypical role that is in male-driven teen comedies – you know, the kind that are about the conquest of losing one’s virginity or

Preface: I wanted to write on this topic right after reading the Lion Fight interview with Tiffany Van Soest prior to her fight with Caley Reece on the Lion Fight promotion. It ended up taking me longer than I’d expected to make the time to actually sit down and write it. Female fighter and blogger Natasha Sky also was inspired by this same interview (the question of risking beauty was also posed to Caley Reece, facing Van Soest on that card) and she wrote a piece on her blog, including questions to other female fighters on their opinions on this

This post is taken from a response I posted on the Women Only section of the Roundtable Forum – where confirmed female members discuss all things Muay Thai. If you are a female who trains in Muay Thai do join our group. The question was raised there by one of our members about the benefits and/or complications of female only classes. Her question specifically referenced “self defense” classes and women wanting to be prepared physically and mentally for an assault, and being disappointed that they were treated “ladylike” in those courses; but there are gyms that offer “women’s classes” that

above is my 20 minute video Interview of Frances Watthanaya in Phutthaisong, Buriram – Isaan Read about my trip to Giatbundit Gym in Phutthaisong here. Read about and watch my fight for Giatbundit Gym in Buriram here. Talking with fighter, mother & wife Frances Watthanaya When I first “met” Frances online she was living in Canada and finishing up her degree. She also is a mother to a young, intensely independent, little daughter named Parvati. And she’s a Muay Thai fighter who is married to another Muay Thai fighter and now that she’s finished her degree and the family has

my interview of Chocolate at Petchrungruang in Pattaya (above) Chocolate lets out these “oh-hoy!” exclamations when I land a good knee or give her a quick turn in the clinch. They’re similar to the “oi!” of calling out a point in the Thai habit, but there’s a small hint of protest in the sound as well – it’s joyful, but it’s got this wonderful, “oh no you didn’t!” hint to it as well. And she’ll get that point back, no doubt. Chocolate doesn’t stop. We were in the smaller ring at Petchrungruang, where the kids tend to gather and just